


Ghost Stories

by WolfOfAnsbach



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Framing Story, Gen, Horror, Supernatural Elements
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-13
Updated: 2019-08-13
Packaged: 2020-08-23 05:02:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,775
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20237176
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WolfOfAnsbach/pseuds/WolfOfAnsbach
Summary: When a power outage cuts short Cheryl Blossom's Halloween party, the guests decide to pass the time and the storm raging outside by telling each other campfire ghost stories.





	1. Opening: The Party (or, a framing device)

**Author's Note:**

> Since it's Halloween season (yes, August counts as Halloween season):
> 
> This'll be an anthology sort of thing, that I'll try to update irregularly up to Halloween at least. Each chapter a different short story, featuring different characters as protagonists. And with the framing device of Cheryl's party.

A ‘Halloween pre-game’, Cheryl had called it.

Though of course, the Blossom twins hardly needed an excuse to throw a party.

Thornhill’s living room was filled to capacity, and then some. The air reeked of cheap booze. And not so cheap booze dredged up out of the Blossom family wine cellar in the fortuitous absence of Cliff and Penelope.

Betty Cooper was seriously regretting having come along. She was sitting up against the wall like she’d been nailed to it, and there was an untouched glass of beer in her hand. Music she didn’t like assailed her from all angles. Veronica was so _persuasive_. That’s why she was here.

She pulled her knees up to her chest and sighed. This wasn’t her scene. It was a perfect Halloween night outside. The leaves were orange, and tumbling from the trees. The moon, crowned with dark clouds, was fat and heavy in the inky sky. Rain came down, hard, smashing against the walls and drenching the curdling foliage in the manor gardens. Naked branches beat menacingly at Thornhill’s ancient windows. But no one in here seemed to care much, because they were all too busy drinking and smoking and grinding against each other.

Betty would have much preferred she, Jug, Archie, and Veronica just stay in and watch some movies. But _no_.

Archie was already beyond intoxicated, his shirt lost to God knew where, as he clambered atop a pool table at the urging of Reggie Mantle, who was dressed like a lion or something.

He _had _been dressed as Robin Hood, but one couldn’t tell since all that was left were his green pants.

About half the guests were in costume. Including Betty, who was beginning to feel very silly in her meticulously researched and not-sexed up civil war nurse costume.

Some couple was making out in the corner about twenty feet away, and Betty unconsciously shuffled away.

Then, as the night determined to worsen, a dark shadow fell over her.

“Well, well,” her hostess leered down at her. Cheryl was dressed like a gender-swapped Jack the Ripper, opera cape and skirt splattered with fake blood. Jason hovered behind her, not in costume. “Looks like _somebody’s _not having much fun,” Cheryl grinned.

Betty sighed. She put up her defenses.

“No, Cheryl. I’m not.”

“_I’ve _got an idea!” Cheryl squealed. “Why don’t we pl—“

Before we could finish, there was a terrible shuddering sound, and the lights went out.

A collective cry of disappointment exploded from the throats of the partygoers. Betty breathed a sigh of relief.

“Are you _serious_?” Cheryl shrieked. “What is this, wartime? Jason, go check the breakers!”

Jason, now just an amorphous shadow lit precariously by scarce moonlight, obediently shuffled off.

The fallen darkness put a serious damper on the festivities. No one had really been doing much that _required _power, but it seemed to just sap everyone’s spirits. The laughter and general carousing died down. The pattering rain got louder. It got cold. People began to drift together, towards the center of the room.

Jason returned and informed everyone the power wasn’t going to be back on anytime soon. A few people up and left. But most were not willing to sacrifice the night so readily. And most didn’t want to brave the heavy rain.

Someone bumped Betty in the dark. She gasped.

“Calm down, B,” Veronica said. “It’s just me.”

The crowd drifted into a rough semi-circle before the extinguished fireplace.

“This is bullshit,” Reggie whined.

A shadow shifted near the kitchen. Nearly everyone jumped. A few screamed. Jughead shuffled into the room, munching on something.

“At ease, troops,” he said. And he shoved another Oreo into his mouth.

“Who said you could eat those?” Cheryl screeched. He was on thin ice, as he wasn’t _technically _invited. He didn’t seem to get that. Or care.

Jughead shrugged.

He ate another cookie.

“No one else was eating them.”

Cheryl seethed quietly in the dark.

Jughead came and joined the circle.

“Now, what?” Veronica asked, scooting up next to Betty.

“Let’s play, ‘guess who punched me’,” said Reggie. It was not a popular motion.

“I know,” said Archie through his beer-induced haze. “Why don’t we tell ghost stories?”

Cheryl scoffed.

“What are you, five?”

But then Jason said: “I _like _that idea.”

And then Jughead concurred.

“A third approval of the motion,” he said.

Betty shrugged. It certainly wouldn’t be any worse than the night so far.

The revelers sat in silence for a minute.

“Tales of terror it is,” Cheryl said, defeated. She took another sip of her drink.


	2. the Pearls

Then Jughead leaned in, hardly visible in the shadows, a sadistic smile on his face. Cheryl rolled her eyes. Betty pouted. Archie looked positively thrilled, like a little boy. Veronica tentatively awaited his tale.

“So,” Jughead said. “If no one else is going to take the initiative, I’ll start off with a little story I like to call…

_ **The Pearls** _

They were the prettiest set of pearls Veronica had ever seen. She didn’t know what it was about them. They shone specially. They caught more light than pearls ought to. They glimmered like a chain of stars.

The pearls hung lonely on the little silver jewelry stand.

Veronica reached out and caressed them, gently. They were so _smooth_. Without the slightest imperfection.

She pulled her hand away.

They weren’t _hers_.

A line of ladies and gentlemen in black filed behind her, towards Thornhill’s winter salon.

Nana Rose had finally passed on. All of Riverdale was in attendance of her funeral. And the pearls were _hers_. Or had been hers.

“A-_hem_!”

Veronica spun around. Cheryl stood behind her, arms crossed, eyes blazing.

“_What_, pray tell, are you doing picking through my family’s old heirlooms with those déclassé claws of yours?”

Veronica rolled her eyes.

“Relax, Cheryl. I’m just appreciating your bloodline’s rich and blood-curdling heritage.” She ran her fingers over a tobacco snuff box shaped like a skull.

“Whatever. Get in here. The services are starting.”

Veronica reluctantly left the lovely pearls behind and followed Cheryl into the salon. She took a seat next to Betty, who fidgeted anxiously two rows of seats down from the coffin, up on the dais.

From here, Veronica could clearly see Rose Blossom laid out in the pinewood box, cool and stiff in death. Her lips were hard and lined. The papery skin of her face stretched taught over her brittle bones, tinted with the pall of the grave. Her hands were clasped tight over her waist, curled together so firmly Veronica thought they might any moment slide apart, and creep up over the edge of the coffin.

“She looks so peaceful,” Betty said.

Veronica nodded in agreement that she did not feel. Rose did not look peaceful to her. She looked tense. Like a coiled panther about to spring. She shook aside the feeling. And really, what she couldn’t expel from her mind was the pearls. It was weird. She liked a good necklace or a nice pair of earrings, but she couldn’t remember the last glimmering accessory that captured her attention like those pearls. There was something _special _about them.

Cheryl got up and said a few words about her dearly departed grandmother.

“Blossoms never truly die,” she said in that overwrought manner of hers. “They fall back in decay unto the earth, and then rise again in terrific glory.”

Veronica watched Jughead roll his eyes.

When eulogies were finished the attendants filed past the coffin. Veronica was reluctant. But she was here in a mourner’s capacity, after all, even if the Blossoms and the Lodges maintained less than cordial feelings towards one another.

As she passed the box and the corpse inside, Veronica felt a shock of discomfort. Rose’s face had a waxen quality. It looked almost artificial, and yet so languid that her mouth might open at any moment. And _speak_. She shuddered and hurried on past.

“Rest in peace,” she muttered.

On the way out of Thornhill, she stopped again by the little table on which sat the little silver jewelry stand on which hung the tempting pearls. She reached out and touched them again. Looked over her shoulder. No one was watching.

Veronica Lodge was not a _thief_. Certainly not a thief of something so trifling as a pearl necklace. But again—these were _special_.

And so, in a moment of weakness, she reached out, plucked them from the jewelry stand, and secreted them away in the folds of her black mourner’s skirts.

“I hope you enjoyed the services, Veronica,” Cheryl beamed as the guests marched out into a brisk Autumn evening.

“Enthralling,” Veronica answered, clutching the pearls awkwardly against her hip in one hand. Cheryl did not seem to notice anything amiss.

So Veronica hurried away.

As she traipsed down Thornhill’s formidable old stone steps, a sharp Autumn wind cut past her ears. In the moment, as it rustled, through her ears, the corner of her mind given to fancy interpreted it nearly as words:

Or one word.

“_Ve-ron-ica…”_

* * *

She had only heard the wind, she told herself. Cliche as it was. Just the wind. What bothered her more was the nagging guilt in her gut.

It wasn’t like Rose Blossom was going to be _needing _or _wanting _the pearls anymore. But _still_. They were hers.

And Veronica _wasn’t _a thief. Except that she was.

Lovely as they were, she couldn’t bring herself to wear them until a month later, only a few days before Halloween. When Reggie threw that party. She dressed in one of her favorite purple party dresses and strung the pearls around her slender throat, the guilt reduced to a light flicker.

“That’s a pretty necklace, _mija,” _said her mother. “I don’t remember buying it for you.”

“Daddy bought it for me,” Veronica lied. “For my thirteenth birthday. One of his token briberies.”

Hermione watched her for a second. Then nodded.

“Okay.”

Veronica agreed heartily with her mother, of course. It _was _a pretty necklace. And it was especially pretty on her. She took a minute to admire it in the collapsible mirror before stepping out through the door.

The pearls reflected in the mirror and the mirror reflected in the glinting pearls creating a little row of nesting reflections bouncing back and forth for eternity. And Veronica saw her own face, distorted and broad, reproduced in the smooth curving pearls.

Except—for a minute, it wasn’t her face anymore.

It was a _face_, sure. Clear as day, glinting in the pearls, like little windows. A young man’s face. Dark hair, strong jaw. It was _Reggie_, wasn’t it?

His face hung in the reflection for a minute, lips blue, eyes blank and dead. The color drained from his cheeks. He looked like Nana Rose.

A cold slithering terror coiled in Veronica’s gut. She almost dropped the mirror. She squealed.

But it was a trick of the light. So she gathered herself, even as her hands trembled, and stepped out through the door.

Silly.

The party was a typical high school affair—except for when it wasn’t.

“Hey,” said Chuck Clayton, holding a translucent cup full of beer. “Nice necklace.”

Now _that _was certainly odd. He was hardly the type to appreciate little baubles like this.

“Uh…thank you…Chuck? I had no idea you had such an eye for ladies’ accessories. ” Veronica said, awkwardly. She fingered the pearls, because they pressed tight into the tender skin of her neck.

“Ronnie, Ronnie!” said Reggie himself, when he finally caught sight of her. “Welcome to my humble abode. Lovely ladies drink free.”

She rolled her eyes.

Halfway through the night, she collapsed onto a couch, sipping on a glass of fruit juice mixed with…something alcoholic. She tugged intermittently at the pearls round her neck, for she was growing short of breath. They might look lovely, but they certainly were constricting. She tried to ignore it.

The night grew long. Kids separated into little clusters or pairs, talking or making out in dark corners. Veronica began to regret coming out. Betty wasn’t here, as she came to parties only on very special occasions. Jughead wasn’t here either, which Veronica was less upset about. Though even his familiar face would’ve been nice.

Archie—

Just as she resolved to go look for him, he came barging in from the patio out back.

“Guys! It’s Reggie!”

The party electrified. All present rushed out back.

Veronica tugged harder at the pearls, and drew a difficult breath.

And when she stepped through the glass door to the backyard—she screamed. But that was alright. So did everyone else.

Reggie Mantle lay splayed out on the grass. His chin sat firmly on his shoulder, for his head was bent around at an unnatural angle. Veronica saw the ridges of his spine press firmly against the soft skin of his neck, to the point that the bone almost burst through. He was gurgling quietly. But that was about it.

A line of blood trickled out over his lips. His eyes were glassy dark. He twitched.

The pearls seemed to wind tighter around her throat, like a constrictor. Veronica threw up.

* * *

Reggie Mantle had died as he lived—doing something stupid for attention.

He’d gotten drunk, jumped off the roof for a laugh, and snapped his neck. End of story.

A tragedy for a little town like this, even if it _was _Riverdale’s most incorrigible rogue concerned.

As for Veronica, all she could think of for some time was the necklace.

How she’d seen his face reflected in the pearls. The night he died.

What if—

No. She’d been thinking about Reggie, already. It was his party, after all. She’d seen her _own _reflection in the necklace. They both had dark hair, skin tending towards olive. She’d seen her own distorted reflection. That was all. Nothing weird about it.

Still—

“Hey, V, what’s wrong?” Betty asked at lunch.

Veronica hunched over the table, shoulders trembling. Betty placed a comforting hand on her best friend’s shoulder.

“It’s—it’s nothing,” Veronica sniffed. “I just—“

“Thinking about Reggie?” Betty asked, sweetly. “I know, it’s sad.”

“I just feel like—“

“Like what?”

“Like, nothing,” Veronica said. She was being stupid.

“He could have at least died for a _good _joke,” Jughead opined.

Betty shot him a look. Veronica went home and crammed the necklace deep into the recesses of her drawer.

She tried to sleep that night, with the covers pulled tight over her head. It was all a coincidence.

And then she heard it—

The voice like an Autumn breeze—

“_Ve-ron-ica…”_

She bolted upright. The voice rang and bounced in her skull. She trembled. And she looked to her drawer. Something horrible sat there. The darkness seemed to bend and twist around the bureau, as if even the shadows wished to avoid the necklace. But she could resist the awful, nagging need to _know _that pulled her out of bed and compelled to her to pull open the drawer, flick on a lamp, and examine the necklace carefully.

It was only her reflection in the perfect, glimmering pearls. Just Veronica Lodge, with dark hair, round face, and—and then, then the hair turned red. And the face turned masculine and angular. 

_Oh God_.

Feverishly, she snatched up her phone and dialed Archie’s number.

“H—hello?” His voice was smoky and distant. He’d been asleep. Veronica breathed a deep sigh of relief to hear him speak. She collected herself and tightened her own voice.

“_Bon soir_,” she said. “I was just calling because I…couldn’t sleep,” she lied unconvincingly.

“Oh,” said Archie. She heard him shift and move, and then the sound of footsteps.

“Where are you going?” she asked instinctively.

“Well, as long as you woke me up, I might as well go get a drink of water.”

She heard his footsteps thud into the hall. The pearls were wrapped around her left palm. And when she looked down, she saw that somehow, they’d pulled themselves tighter, so that the blood rushed towards her fingers.

Veronica gasped.

She heard him reach the first step on the staircase.

“Archie—“

She heard the steps creak underneath his feet as Archie headed downstairs.

“You okay, Ronnie?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. Just a bit rattled by the events of the week, is all.”

She heard him pull the fridge open. He grabbed something and began to chew.

“Oh, _gross_!” she hissed. “God, just because we’re not face to face doesn’t mean you have to chew like a barnyard hog!”

“Hey, I—“

Archie sputtered. Then she heard him heave, dry and hopeless, through the line.

“Archie? _Archie_?”

Something else clattered. Something heavy fell to the floor.

“Archie!”

The phone must have fallen from his fingers, because there was a loud and screeching hiss, and then she heard no more.

By the time the police arrived, it was much too late. Veronica never got to see the body. She didn’t want to. They’d said his face was blue. His hands had been at his throat, as he fought in vain to cough up a hunk of warmed over chicken.

Even though she was not wearing the necklace, Veronica swore she could feel the pearls around her throat.

* * *

At the funeral, Betty was inconsolable. Veronica and Jughead wrapped her up in a double hug, trying to hold in their own tears for her sake.

“I’m so, so sorry, B,” Veronica sniffled.

“Why?” Betty asked, between sobs. “It’s not your fault?”

And Veronica couldn’t hold back the tears anymore. Jughead stood by Archie’s freshly carved headstone, hands in his pockets, beanie hanging down over his eyes.

“I’m sorry," Veronica repeated.

As soon as the services ended, she caught Cheryl at the edge of the cemetery, as the mourners departed. She grabbed the redhead’s arm tight.

“Cheryl!”

“Easy, Veronica!” Cheryl hissed. Then she looked down at their feet, and they both scrambled away from the nearby plot. “You know it’s bad luck to step on a grave.”

Veronica reached into her pocket. She reached for the pearls. She thrust them towards Cheryl. Cheryl recoiled, as if she was being offered a poisoned apple.

“Oh. My. God,” Cheryl gasped. “You _didn’t_! You wouldn’t _dare_!”

“I’m so sorry,” Veronica exclaimed through sobs. “I don’t know why I did it. Please—take them back. There’s something—“

Cheryl shoved her away. The rage Veronica had expected was nowhere to be found. Only deep, almost pitiful sadness.

“I _can’t_,” Cheryl said.

“What? No! Take them! They’re your grandmother’s! Take them! _Please_!”

“I can’t,” Cheryl repeated. She shook her head. “I can’t. Don’t you see, you poor, hopeless girl? They aren’t mine to take back?”

“_Cheryl_!” Veronica shoved the necklace towards her again, and again she pulled away. “_Please_!”

“Only she can take them back.”

And Cheryl sprung a black umbrella, and turned and walked away.

Veronica rushed home again. Periodically stopping to peek into the beaming reflective curvature of the string of pearls.

Just her own reflection. Just her own reflection.

“_Mija_,” Hermione tried to say as Veronica stumbled into the Pembrooke foyer.

“I can’t,” Veronica choked out, and made a beeline for her room. She tumbled onto her bed, gripping the pearls tight in both hands. She glared at them, like she was interrogating a prisoner. “_Why_? What _are you_? N—Rose—Mrs. Blossom? Is that—I’m _sorry _I took them, okay? I’m _sorry!_ I—“ And then the reflection began to change again. “No! No!” Her raven hair shifted blonde. And her face shimmered and melted into that of—“No!”

Veronica grabbed the heavy mirror on her bedstand. She laid the pearls on her headboard, and brought the back of the mirror down hard on them. _Crunch_. Again. _Crunch_. The pearls shuddered, and then splintered into dust. The shards, if anything, shone brighter. She brought the mirror down harder. _Crunch_. _Crunch. _Until there was nothing left but fine white dust. With a cry of guilt, Veronica swept the remains into a dustpan, and hurled it out of the window. She tossed the denuded string of the necklace after them.

Then she dialed Betty, feverishly.

“Betty?”

“Hey,” Betty sniffled through the line.

“Betty? Are you okay?” Veronica demanded.

“V—Archie’s dea—“

“I know,” Veronica choked out. “I know. But are you safe?”

“Safe?” Betty’s voice, meek and confused. “I—I’m safe, sure. What do you mean?”

Veronica breathed in, deeply.

She stayed on the line with Betty for the next four hours. They talked of good times with their friends, cried together. Comforted each other. And some of the weight, if not the guilt, lifted from Veronica’s heart.

Maybe it was her fault. But at least she’d saved Betty. Both Reggie and Archie had died hardly an hour after she’d seen their reflections in the pearls. Betty was still alive. She would be fine. She would be fine.

They hung up after dark. Betty wished her a good night’s rest. That was something Veronica knew she might never have again. But she appreciated the sentiment. She didn’t deserve a friend like Betty.

She curled up in her bed that night, covers up around her neck. Her neck, which even without the pearls, felt so _tight_.

But she told herself it was over. Yes, it was over.

Until after midnight, she heard it. Down in the courtyard of the Pembrooke.

“_Ve-ron-ica.”_

She pulled the covers up over her head. It was the Autumn wind. That was all.

“_Ve-ron-ica_.”

And it was closer, now. _In the building_.

Her teeth began to chatter. She tried to move her tongue and call out to her mother, but she could not.

“_You have my pearls,” _trickled the voice like thick, oozing blood.

Veronica pressed her face into the mattress. Oh God. But she _didn’t _have the pearls. Not anymore.

“Only she can take them back,” Cheryl had said. But Veronica couldn’t _give _them back, now. Because she’d smashed them. _Oh God_.

“_You have my pearls_.”

Closer, now. On the stairwell.

She thought of making for the door. But she knew she could never make it. So she shoved a pillow over her ears and prayed.

“_Where are my pearls_?”

She tried again to call out to her mother. Nothing but a pitiable squeak emerged.

“_You have my pearls_.” In the hallway, now.

“No,” Veronica whimpered.

“_Give me back my pearls.”_

At the threshold, now. A rough, corpselike foot at the door.

“I _can’t_!” Veronica managed to cry out at least, though her throat was so tight she could hardly draw breaths. “I—“

But then the door began to creak open. And the shape melted inside.

“_GIVE ME BACK MY PEARLS!”_

And Veronica’s screams frightened the birds from the trees.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You'll probably recognize this as a variant of a story variously told as "the Big Toe" or "the Liver". My mother used to tell it to me, and you might have read it in 'Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark'. Usually it involves some part of a corpse being eaten. But I suppose a stolen heirloom works just as well.


End file.
